


come on out and live

by notquiteaghost



Series: i will keep it safe [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: "what's the point in having magic if you can't get magic HRT", - me to every cishet fantasy writer and also jaskier to geralt, F/M, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Podfic Welcome, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, established relationships - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22924711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquiteaghost/pseuds/notquiteaghost
Summary: When Geralt is ten, she’s a boy.She’s a boy, because they’re all boys, because Witchers are men, because the spells only work on men. She has short hair and she wears trousers and she spends her days fighting, because they all do. She can’t remember any different, not clearly, not with anything other than a strange, aching kind of longing she doesn’t understand.She’s a boy. She doesn’t like being a boy. She doesn’t like a lot of things – the sounds of swords clashing, the reddish vegetable they put in the stew sometimes, when the older boys try to explain things to her that she knows. Life, she’s learning, is a lot about putting up with things.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: i will keep it safe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646896
Comments: 30
Kudos: 446





	come on out and live

**Author's Note:**

> title is from ‘my lady story’ by antony and the johnsons; ‘ _still you’re coaxing me, come on out and live_ ’
> 
> heads up that geralt misgenders herself for a significant chunk of this
> 
> and should probably say somewhere i am intentionally writing geralt as autistic, and that's true always
> 
> also i did NOT look up how witcher mutations work and i AM winging it. my house my rules

When Geralt is ten, she’s a boy.

She’s a boy, because they’re all boys, because Witchers are men, because the spells only work on men. She has short hair and she wears trousers and she spends her days fighting, because they all do. She can’t remember any different, not clearly, not with anything other than a strange, aching kind of longing she doesn’t understand.

She’s a boy. She doesn’t like being a boy. She doesn’t like a lot of things — the sound of swords clashing, the reddish vegetable they put in the stew sometimes, when the older boys try to explain things to her that she knows. Life, she’s learning, is a lot about putting up with things.

She says, once, late at night when they’re the only two awake, right into Eskel’s ear the way they do with secrets, “What if I’m a girl?”

And Eskel hums, and thinks, and says, “Then the Trials won’t work.”

Geralt doesn’t want to be a man.

Geralt wants to be a Witcher.

Eskel rolls over to face her, the set of his brow solemn. “If you’re a girl,” he says, “then the Trials won’t work. If you aren’t, then they will.”

“So I can be a man, or I can die?”

“You can run away.” Geralt’s lip curls, some mix of anger and revulsion, and Eskel presses their foreheads together. “I’ll come with you, if you want. We’d be okay, together.”

Running away, Geralt knows, is just another way of dying. They’re far from any other people, and they wouldn’t be able to take horses, and they wouldn’t know where to go. Boys who run away don’t make it — they’re brought back, one way or another.

Geralt doesn’t want to die. She wants to be a Witcher.

“If the Trials work,” she says.

“If the Trials work,” Eskel agrees.

* * *

One night, when the weather is foul and the bed is warm, and against all his better judgement, Geralt allows Yennefer to rest her head on his ribs. Trace over his scars with her fingertips, make that kind of intimate conversation he’s only ever otherwise had with Jaskier. The only light is from the moon, through the window, and Geralt doesn’t know how to tell Yenn he’s no good place to unburden secrets without her thinking it’s the softness in her voice he’s protesting.

“I was a boy, once, you know,” she says, apropos of nothing but the mood settled over the both of them. “Before Aretuza, anyway.”

Geralt can’t help but tense. Yenn, of course, notices.

“If that’s a problem—” She starts, sits up. Geralt shakes his head, sharply, thankful she knows him well enough to let that silence her.

It takes him several moments, to gather the words.

“Witchers are men,” he says. It would be far easier to let her just pluck this from his mind, but she knows him too well to do that when he isn’t actively dying. “The Trials, they’re designed for men. It’s a delicate magic. Many die.”

“Ah,” Yennefer says.

He doesn’t need to say, _It was all I knew, I was a child, It was no choice at all_. Doesn’t need to explain the isolation, the pressure, how easy it is to sacrifice your happiness when you’ve only caught the smallest glimpses. How it wasn’t about happiness at all.

“Another thing we have in common, then,” she says, and Geralt very abruptly wants to throw something. She notices, she always notices, and her voice is the closest to gentleness it ever is when she says, “I’m sure there are still ways—”

“Don’t.”

“If I just knew more about the mutagens—”

He growls, and sits up, swings his legs out of bed entirely to put his back to her. “Everyone who knew is dead. Everyone who could have helped is dead. I can’t—” He clenches his fists. Something ugly and roiling is filling up his chest, curling up his throat. “We are _not_ the same.”

A lie.

They’re exactly the same, but Geralt is a Witcher, and Witchers don’t get what they want. Mages, the world can’t roll over for quick enough. Witchers aren’t so lucky. He does the work, and he’s good at it, and that’s enough. That’s plenty. It has to be.

Yennefer, of course, would rather die than settle. Would rather die than compromise.

Geralt can’t die. Geralt is necessary.

“Okay,” Yenn says. Less gentle, more stubborn. This isn’t over, because Yenn is relentless, but she knows when to call truce. “Does your bard know?”

Geralt curses.

Of course Jaskier doesn’t know. Jaskier doesn’t— Jaskier is so set on reshaping the world for Geralt’s sake, so sure it’s only not already rolling over for him too for lack of trying, so _hopeful_. It hurts, sometimes.

All the reasons Geralt keeps letting Jaskier close, though, are all the reasons Jaskier and Yenn can’t go longer than an evening without ending up at each other’s throats. So, thank the Gods, she doesn’t press. Doesn’t try and tell him Jaskier should know, he should let Jaskier help. Does, instead, wrap a hand around his arm and tug until he lies back down.

“There’s a man,” she says, as she once more arranges him and the blankets to her liking, “in the next town. Several people would very much like him dead.”

Geralt hums, and lets her promise him an opportunity to make his sacrifice worth it, and doesn’t speak again.

* * *

Sometimes, Geralt thinks Jaskier might also be a mindreader.

He knows, of course, that there are many nuances to people that are lost on him, and that knowing them is no magic. Jaskier has to be good at reading people; it’s half his job. But, sometimes, Jaskier doesn’t just correctly read Geralt’s body language, or hear entire sentences in his _Hmm_ s. Sometimes, it seems Jaskier reaches right into the core of him, and plucks free things even Geralt didn’t know he was harbouring.

They’re at the banquet for Jaskier.

This is a thing Jaskier does, and if Jaskier got his way then they wouldn’t spend a single second apart. There’s no hidden motivation to him inviting Geralt, beyond wanting to spend time with him and introduce him to his friends and send him insane with the sight of that dress. They’re here for Jaskier, because Jaskier doesn’t know. No one ever knows, unless Geralt tells them.

It’s a small gathering, only three dozen or so people, and they all greet Jaskier by name. Are delighted, truly just _delighted_ to finally meet his fabled White Wolf. They smile wide, embrace Jaskier tightly, don’t try to embrace Geralt. Ask about a line in a song, a monster they heard tell of, if Jaskier still kicks in his sleep something awful. There’s music, songs that everyone but Geralt knows, and dancing, and enough noise to drown out banquets three times as large.

Jaskier asks him to dance, mouth curled in that smirk that always makes Geralt want to drop, immediately, to his knees. Geralt can’t find the strength to say no, and he’s clumsy, wrongfooted, but he’s not the only one, and the press of Jaskier close to him is intoxicating.

The whole night, no one calls him Jaskier’s man. No one calls him man at all, only Wolf, only friend. Something in their tone, too, reassures they don’t mean to monster him, don’t see only claws and snarl. He’s _Jaskier’s_ Wolf.

And, once they’re back at their room, it all won’t leave Geralt’s head. Jaskier wearing a dress, and none of his friends batting an eye — Geralt wearing a shirt and pants and medallion, and everyone still taking care not to assume — the woman with a deeper voice and a well-groomed beard who asked about Geralt’s swords — the joy, palpable in the air, bright as sunshine — Yennefer’s voice, _I’m sure there are still ways_.

Naturally, Jaskier notices. Presses. Asks _What do you want?_ as if Geralt’s answer matters. Says _You’re a woman_ as if it’s that easy, that simple, an irrefutable truth. An inconsequential fact.

It _guts_ Geralt. It always does.

Come morning, Jaskier wants to make plans.

“Where was Yennefer, last?” He asks, as he hands a plate of breakfast to Geralt and climbs back onto the bed. Soon, they’ll need to leave, to make it to some minor court Jaskier is playing at in good time, but Jaskier has clearly decided they’re having this conversation before Geralt can disappear into the woods to avoid his questions.

“There’s nothing Yenn can do.”

Jaskier raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Oh, does she know you think that? She’s the most powerful mage on the Continent, you know.”

Geralt huffs. “Witchers have to be men, for the mutagens to work. The magic is… complicated.”

“But they’ve worked,” Jaskier points out. “You’re mutated. That can’t be undone, surely.”

“No,” Geralt allows. “But I could die.”

That shuts Jaskier up.

The breakfast is good — only bread and cheese, nothing fancy, but good bread, the sort only ever found in well-off towns. Maybe Geralt will track down the baker before they leave, buy a loaf or two. They’re well enough for coin.

Jaskier’s brow is still furrowed in thought, as they eat. The various enchantments has had did, of course, carry their own level of risk. That’s not the root of the problem.

“…Yennefer worked it out, didn’t she,” he says, between bites of bread. “And offered her help, and you dismissed her out of hand, because you’ll never let yourself have anything good when you could suffer instead.”

Geralt looks pointedly at Jaskier, sat on their bed, wearing one of Geralt’s shirts.

Jaskier huffs. “That’s not the rebuke you think it is, dearest, when we both well remember each time you tried to chase me away. All knowledge of the mutagens is lost?”

There was a time, once, when Jaskier wouldn’t dare ask a question like that. Geralt misses it.

“There are books,” she admits. She could lie, but Jaskier knows Eskel, now, and lying would only delay the inevitable. “But they were for reference, not teaching. If you don’t already understand, they’re of no use.”

“For making a Witcher.”

Geralt nods.

“But we don’t want to make a Witcher,” Jaskier points out. “We want to slightly alter the Witcher we already have. And, yes, that’s no less dangerous, but Witcher books might be slightly more forthcoming about general care and maintenance, no?”

Dammit.

Dammit, why must he be _right_.

Geralt stands, and busies herself pulling on her armour. Jaskier knows she needs time to collect her thoughts, but she finds it easier when her hands are moving.

So far, everything Jaskier’s decided is for Geralt’s own good has happened, regardless of her feelings. Jaskier is the ocean, if the ocean were capable of warmth and gentleness; no one can outlast his determination. Jaskier has decided Geralt deserves this. The only way it isn’t happening is if one of them dies.

Yenn, also, likes it when Geralt is happy. And she already has something of a personal vendetta about the Trials, and how little she knows of the. She would overthrow one of the smaller countries, for the chance to look through Kaer Morhen’s library.

“…Come winter,” Geralt says, after she’s moved on to cleaning her swords, and Jaskier has packed the rest of their belongings away, “We’ll go to Kaer Morhen. And bring Yenn.”

Jaskier _beams_ at her.

“Do you think Eskel still remembers he owes me?”

Two winters previous, Geralt had nearly lost an arm to a manticore days before she needed to leave if she wanted to beat the snow, and Jaskier had refused to leave her side. So, reluctantly, she had brought him to the Witcher stronghold. Vesemir had been _insufferable_ , and Jaskier had managed to get Eskel and Lambert to believe his naive-and-hopeless-noble routine long enough to swindle the both of them at cards.

“I’m sure you’ll remind him,” she says, and sheathes her sword. “Where was it you’re playing?”

Jaskier allows the conversation to shift, now the matter is settled to his satisfaction, and starts on one of his long, rambling diatribes about the sins and spoils of the court they’re headed to. They head out the inn, to the stables, and Geralt lets the rhythm of Jaskier’s words set Roach’s pace as they head out of town.

**Author's Note:**

> i have the origin of geralt & jaskier's relationship in this 'verse half-written and have for a full week... but other than that the next instalment will probably be about ciri, so, fire off your trans ciri thoughts in the comments / my askbox
> 
> i am [here](http://notquiteaghost.tumblr.com) on tumblr. this series also now has a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/notquiteaghost/playlist/1G610H0i05UefLd5Fvrsxn?si=evLmZXtPQN6xOCcAevjbzQ), because i make them compulsively

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] come on out and live](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24699787) by [Chantress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chantress/pseuds/Chantress)




End file.
